2008-2009 Annual Review

School for Advanced Research on the Human Experience The Long View Santa Fe, New Mexico Annual Review 2008–2009 School for Advanced Research on the Human Experience Santa Fe, New Mexico Annual Review 2009 The School for Advanced Research gratefully acknowledges the very generous support of the Paloheimo Foundation for publication of this report. The foundation’s grant honors the late Leonora Paloheimo and her mother, Leonora Curtin, who served on the Board of Managers of the School from 1933 to 1972. CONTENTS President’s Message: The Long View 4 Cultivating the Long View: SAR Programs 6 TIME Dean Falk: Riddling the Bones 10 Wenda Trevathan: Evolutionary Medicine and Women’s Health 11 Timothy R. Pauketat: An Archaeology of the Cosmos 12 Daniel J. Hoffman: Building the Barracks 13 Audra Simpson: To the Reserve and Back Again 14 Cedar Sherbert, King Native Artist Fellow 15 Jessica Metcalfe, Branigar Native Intern 16 Pat Courtney Gold, Dobkin Native Artist Fellow 17 Ulysses Reid, Dubin Native Artist Fellow 18 NEW BOOKS FROM SAR PRESS Visiting Research Associates 19 Democracy 35 Summer Scholars 20 Confronting Cancer 36 Aboriginal Business 37 CONNECTION The Ancient City 38 Symposium: Corporate Lives 22 Figuring the Future 39 Advanced Seminar: The Middle Classes 23 Timely Assets 40 Advanced Seminar: Markets and Moralities 24 The Great Basin 41 Advanced Seminar: Colonial and Postcolonial Discover the Digital SAR 42 Change in Mesoamerica 25 Indian Arts Research Center: COMMUNITY Connecting Artists, Scholars, and Tradition 26 Off the Beaten Path: Member Field Trips 44 Colloquium Series 28 Offbeat New Mexico: SAR Sparks Talks 46 Short Seminar: The Archaeology The Anthropology of Food: of Indigenous Resistance 30 2008–2009 Lecture Series 47 Short Seminar: Scholars, Security, and Peer Institution Workshop 48 Citizenship 30 SAR President’s Council 48 Short Seminar: Women’s Health and Sibelius Academy and SAR 49 Empowerment 31 Stephen Houston Named MacArthur Fellow 49 Short Seminar: Breathing New Life into Protecting Galisteo Basin Archaeological Sites 50 the Evidence of Death 31 2009 Additions to IARC Collections 51 Short Seminar: IHOPE-Maya 32 Campus Scholarship 52 COMMUNICATION Administration 55 The J. I. Staley Prize: Jonathan Marks, Summary Financial Statement 60 What It Means to Be 98% Chimpanzee 34 3 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE THE LONG VIEW AT THE SCHOOL FOR ADVANCED RESEARCH During the past year, we at the School, like you, experienced the forces of history in an astonishingly personal and immediate fashion. From a global economic crisis that threatens massive social and political unrest—and which saw the School’s endowment decline by almost a third—to a presiden- tial election few people thought possible in their lifetimes, the pace of change seemed sometimes cataclysmic, sometimes exhilarating. Our programs at SAR lend perspective on these events, reminding us in the best of ways that our institutional stability and maturity find reflection in the “long view” at the center of the social sciences, humanities, and arts. Even as we made tactical adjustments to our finances and programming that would ensure our mission’s viability for future generations of scholars and artists, we saw in this year’s work on campus evidence that maintaining depth of field is a crucial aspect of SAR’s “peculiar alchemy.” Celebrating the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth (and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his The Origin of Species) was some- thing we had planned for years, given the centrality of Darwin’s genius to anthropology and to lecturer and president emeritus Douglas Schwartz’s own intellectual journey. Less easily foreseen was the serendipitous presence on campus of two eminent biological anthropologists at once, in the persons of Dean Falk and Wenda Trevathan. Falk’s path breaking research into the ori- gins and evolution of Homo floresiensis—and her startling observation that those “hobbits” of Flores Island may have descended from an early hominin ancestor that in some ways resembled African australopithecines while pos- sessing a nearly modern human brain—offered a cautionary insight into the workings of natural selection. Trevathan’s focus on women’s evolutionary health across similar sweeps of time alerted us to very recent changes in childbirth and women’s health with potential consequences for our species’ future. Even this year’s J. I. Staley Prize winner—Jonathan Marks’s What It Means to Be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and Their Genes—proved unexpectedly to validate the merits of taking a sober stance vis-à-vis the perils and promises of “the science of Man.” The cover image for this year’s Annual Review—a long shot that captures both the majesty of our century-old “great cottonwood” and, in the foreground, a cottonwood sapling that we planted in 2007 to prepare for the passing of the old icon—signals our commitment to constancy in our mission. As you read further, you’ll see that in all our programs we seek to combine the wisdom of maturity with the vigor of imagination, supporting people and projects ranging from breakthrough Native filmmakers like King Fellow Cedar Sherbert to innovative tradition-keepers like Dobkin Fellow Pat Courtney Gold, and from the “deep time” cosmological archaeology of Weatherhead Fellow Timothy Pauketat to the “real time” ethnographic work among Sierra Leone’s youth militias conducted by Weatherhead Fellow Daniel J. Hoffman. 4 We at SAR consider ourselves fortunate to be a part of this moment in history—as fascinating from the long view as it occasionally feels disquieting in the here and now—and we strive to practice prudence and vision in equal measure. Our advanced seminars this past year likewise embraced the long view, but in several cases they proved unexpectedly prescient in their engagement with the “urgent necessity of now.” The long view took the fore in a state-of-the-art examination of the historical archaeology of colonial and postcolonial Mesoamerica, while a surprising timeliness colored seminars on the state of the middle classes around the world and the relationship between economic markets and cultural norms of moral behavior. Little did we imagine the pressing topicality of those issues when we booked the seminars 18 months earlier! Similarly, a pioneering symposium titled “Corporate Lives: New Perspectives on the Social Life of the Corporate Form,” held in collaboration with the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, brought participants from academia, corporate governance, and the private sector into one room for six days just as the global financial crisis was unfolding. The special issue of Current Anthropology in which those proceedings will be published should garner a keen readership. SAR’s public education programs span time and distance as well. Our Southwest Crossroads educational Web site hosted some 60,000 unique users this past year, from here in New Mexico to as far away as New Zealand. Field trips for SAR members ranged from a look at the archaeology and history of Cañada Alamosa in the Black Range of southern New Mexico to a walking tour of historic Santa Fe. In the coming year we venture inter- national, with a trip to Belize and Guatemala to explore Maya archaeology and ethnology. This year’s lecture series, “The Anthropology of Food,” reached far back into hominin evolution to assess debates over our progen- itors’ diets, and as near in time to issues of food insecurity (and security) in Africa. To offer the public similarly useful knowledge, our 2009–2010 lectures will explore the social and cultural dimensions of “wealth”—that is, of everything from primates to pirates to Bronze Age China. Altogether, the past year will remain marked in our memories for a long time. As we look forward, we draw confidence from the long view of human history, the depth of anthropological understanding of human nature, and the strength of our ability to support and enrich the lives of scholars, artists, educators, and the interested public. 5 CULTIVATING THE LONG VIEW SAR Programs All of SAR’s programs provide essential elements that encourage the development of the “long view”— the ability to reflect on the past, investigate the present, and envision the future—by the scholars, artists, and thinkers who support and engage with our mission. Nourished by time, connection, communication, and community, the work that takes place at SAR contributes to deepening and broadening the understanding of the human experience. Resident Scholar Program Initiated in 1973 with a single fellowship supported by the Weatherhead Foundation, the Resident Scholar Program has hosted 191 scholars. Fellows are awarded support, including housing and a stipend, for a nine- month writing sabbatical. Summer scholars receive six- to eight-week residencies to complete shorter-term projects. This year, Stephen Houston became the fifth SAR resident scholar to receive the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, joining Anna Roosevelt, Henry Wright, David Stuart, and Steven Feld. Indian Arts Research Center Each year, the Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) fellowship program provides several three-month residencies to Native American artists, ensuring the year- round presence of Native artists on the SAR campus. The Harvey W. Branigar Jr. Native Internship resumed this year—a nine-month residency supporting Native Americans interested in collections management and museum studies. The IARC offers lectures, demonstra- tions, and films to stimulate dialogue and deepen understanding about the cultures represented in its extraordinary collection. J. I. Staley Prize For more than 20 years, the J. I. Staley Prize has been awarded to a living author for a book that exemplifies outstanding scholarship and writing in anthropology. The Staley Prize recognizes innovative works that go beyond traditional frontiers and dominant schools of thought in anthropology and add new dimensions to our understanding of the human species.

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